Oh my God! Just stop it! I read your threads and I just had to read the two scripts for myself, geeze smackmy-garden-ho you're a little harsh? Just a little? Well after all this I read the two scripts and was fairly impressed with them. Ian, your script had atmosphere and was edgy, something the original didn't have. You had a lot more characters(Kansas being my fav) and WAY more dialogue. Things you should've changed so that it doesn't remind you of other "backwoods" films, is the van, you could of easily changed it to an SUV or something. With the van people might be thinking you're ripping off Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I didn't think you should of had the "Logan" family thing cause yet again it reminded the reader of TMC. Your death scenes were good, they reminded me a lot of Wrong Turn, all of the gore and stuff. Good script, fun read. My favorite scene was when Kansas and Jimmy were fooling around in the lake and than Kansas feels something beneath her and sees Jimmy's already on shore. That was suspenseful.

I am reading your script and you obviously DO have some skill, it is just wasted on this pointless rehash.

You might also consider:

"The KILLER tears the machete from her body with a sickening squelch."

I don't think you want to use the word "SQUELCH"
Squelch means to silence.

I don't see much point in work shopping the whole script considering how I feel about the banality of it all, but if you would like me to help out on a purely clinical level I think I could be of help.

Thanks Sliky, I'm really pleased you've seen the original and can compare! That's really good to hear. Yeah you're right about some things being similar to TCM, but to be fair, they are in the original so rather than copying recent films I'm just being faithful to the 1981 version. Still, I might change some things in a re-write to make it a bit different. Lol I'm actually embarrassed now. You said your favourite part was the lake scene, and that's in the original! I added Peter's death and the blood in the waterfall, but the bit you mentioned was lifted from the film. I picked out the best bits (like the church setting and the tree climbing bit) and re-worked them, but also added in a lot of my own stuff in place of the very boring parts in the original.
And smackmy-garden-ho, that tag line is on the back of the video box lol. The synopsis was mine but I kept that tag line on because I thought it was cool. The things you people are mentioning are the few things I KEPT from the original! Honestly, the bulk of it is mine, I swear! Lol. (I hope Sliky can vouch for me on that one?).
Feel free to offer me any advice, I'm very open to it as I'll be writing one that's totally my own soon. It will also come in handy for if I re-write this once. I'm more interested in what people think of the characters and dialogue. I think the horror part is quite easy to do; it's all the other stuff that's more challenging. And you're right about "squelch", I didn't know how to describe the sound lol.

Ian

I haven't seen the original film that this was loosly based upon, so I have no idea how much of it is your work and how many of the ideas are taken from it.  But I really enjoyed that, which is saying alot for me because I have the imagination of a dead fish and usually get bored when presented with large volumes to read.  

I don't want to give many spoilers so I'll be really vague, but I liked the second sequence in the church and the way you described the characters reactions to it, I could really see it in my head.

I don't know whether it was deliberate, but I guessed at who the killer was and it was way off, I can't really say anymore becasue if it was deliberate then I'll spoil it for poeple who haven't read it.

Just one more thing, "SQUELCH",  is definatly onomatopaeic, alternate definitons aside, it's a description of a sound, you ARE using the correct word.  It's like "BARK" the sound a dog can make AND the outer layer of a tree.

Ian,

I'm gonna back 'smack' up here,  as a matter of fact, I couldn't agree more with him.  As a screenwriter who works exclusively on original ideas I find it funny if not a little insulting when other writers post work that is based in part or whole on someelse’s  idea  and then proceed to ask for critique.  What do you want critiqued?  The fact that you can take some else's already successful ideas and put your name on them?  In reading some of the reviews you've gotten I let out a laugh,  the ones that congratulate you on how good it is-  of course it's good!!  It's already been made into a movie!!  It's like writing an 'adaptation' of Casablanca then accepting praise because it's good.

Quoted Text It plays very differently to the original but I guess there are enough similarities for me to be deemed a thief if I passed it off as completely my own lol.

Quoted Text This is pretty much ALL mine.

Which one is it?  

Quoted Text I used the basic plot and that was IT!

This is a typical defense from people who do this type of  'adaptation'  "I only borrowed this or that"  and "I changed a lot".  Newsflash...the plot of the story is the story!   The most difficult and elusive part of screenwriting is coming up with the plot, the engine of the story,  that’s why a movie idea alone, without the full screenplay, can be pitched in Hollywood.

I'm not here to bash the quality of the work,  it's good.  What I take exception to is the way the work is presented.  If you are truly a first time screenwriter and you choose to re-write something as your first project because you deemed it an easier start then so be it.  Don't represent it as anything more than that, and certainly don't look for and accept praise on work that was done by someone else.  

As a final note,  if what you borrowed has so little significance to the finished product,  why don't you just write a project that is exclusively yours?  I mean since you claim this in 'all yours',  why not make it so?

     

The plot - A killer kills teens in the woods. Simple, been done before many times. That is why I referred to the plot in the way that I did; suggesting it was minimal. I couldn't however say it was my own because I didn't JUST use the concept that we've seen in Friday the 13th, The Burning, Madman etc. I did use some of the finer plot details. That's why I didn't pass if off as my own.
However, when you say "the plot of the story is the story! The most difficult and elusive part of screenwriting is coming up with the plot, the engine of the story" you're wrong in this case. The plot is not the most important thing here. All it does is provide a reason to present characters, their relationships with one another, action sequences and death scenes. The stuff *I* came up with. Is the PLOT of Wrong Turn what's important? No. All that happens is, some stranded people meet cannibals and end up on the run. That takes all of 2 seconds to come up. What makes up the bulk of the film is the characters: their choices, reactions, relationships and ultimately their fates, along with action, deaths and gore. In fact Wrong Turn is like Friday the 13th in the way that is makes the death scenes the main attraction of the film. The story is just a reason to present all the other stuff. That's how horror films like this work. And also, plot doesn’t have to equal story. The story here is much more about the teens, what they go through, how they die/live, the struggle to survive etc. That was MY story. Yes it was accompanied by things from the original, but it doesn’t make the PARTS I created any less my own.

"I mean since you claim this in 'all yours', why not make it so?"

I never said it's ALL mine, I said it PRETTY MUCH is. I used the basics that set the scene, and then filled it with my own ideas. Maybe with a lot of changes I could alter further and make it entirely my own work, but as a practice, I did it this way. I probably could of said "I was inspired by this 80s slasher film that no one appears to have seen" and then no one would be stressing out. I can't stress enough how different it is.

"Don't represent it as anything more than that, and certainly don't look for and accept praise on work that was done by someone else."

I wanted feedback on it to see how people responded to the stuff that was MINE. There's no crime in that, and since I SAID there is borrowed material in here, it's not like I'm trying to represent it has some fabulous piece of work that I came up with solely on my own. And it wasn't done by someone else. Most of what is in there is mine, and it would be completely my own if I took out a few things. However, taking these out would mean it had gaps, and I don't as of yet know how to fill them without making it boring or simply ridiculous. Like I said, I've never written a script before, so I don't know how I can change it. I will try to in the future, now that I feel confident that I can write the people and the action. I just need a good story to put them to and I'm on my way. I wouldn't have that confidence had I not written this.

"It's like writing an 'adaptation' of Casablanca then accepting praise because it's good."

Hardly, Casablanca is one of those films that EVERYONE seems to love. Of course an adaptation would be good if everyone already loves the stuff you're going to put in. Just Before Dawn is not a very good horror film. It's slow, boring, goreless...it just happens to have a couple of nice plot twists that I felt were wasted on an empty film. I kept what was good (but still made alterations of my own), and changed what was bad (the majority of it was the slow, boring, goreless stuff I referred to). It becomes very clear to me when a person hasn't seen this film. If you hate people doing adaptations full stop, then fine. But you've accused me of doing things that you don't know I did because you haven't seen the original. I don't want critique on the basic plot, because that wasn't mine (which I have already said). What I wanted (and got in most cases), was for people to pick out good/bad and favourite/least favourite action/death scenes, characters, lines etc (again, the stuff *I* came up with), and to tell me what they thought of my style of writing (description, dialogue, formatting etc). People are generally not mentioning the basic plot because I already said that the plot (bar the changes I made/things I added) isn't mine. I wanted people to talk about the rest of the content; the stuff you choose to ignore because you think I've taken someone else’s already successful ideas and put my name on them. Well that isn't what I did, regardless of what you think. Rather than going by a simple rule of adaptations are bad, why don't you check out the film and compare?

It’s like people want to accuse me of doing something that I’ve already admitted to, so they take it further and present me with their assumptions to make their point. It’s not entirely mine, and I said that! It’s not like I’m trying to sell it or pass if off as something incredibly inventive, I just wanted to put it on the site! Shoot me!

Squelch is not an onomotopeia.

SQUISH is.
Squelch has to do with silence or to put down something harshly

As in to Squelch free speech.

OXFORD CONCISE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, TENTH EDITION 1999
PAGE 1394
COLUMN 1:

SQUELCH

• 
  v. 1 Make a soft sucking sound as that of treading in thick mud.
  2 informal forcefully silence or suppress.

• 
  n.1 a squelching sound. 2. electronics A curcuit that supresses the output of a radio receiver if the signal strength falls below a certain level.

- DERIVITIVES squelcher n. squelchy adj.
- ORIGIN C17: imitative

v. 1 Make a soft sucking sound as that of treading in thick mud.

Yikes. I stand corrected.
It isn't an onomotopeia though.
Thanks.

But it's origins are imitative. I had always assumed that, in these kinds of cases, it meant the word was derived from and imtiation of the sound.

Quoted from Ian, posted June 2nd, 2004, 8:17pm at here The plot - A killer kills teens in the woods. Simple, been done before many times. ... Is the PLOT of Wrong Turn what's important? No. All that happens is, some stranded people meet cannibals and end up on the run. That takes all of 2 seconds to come up.

You are confusing plot with premise.

Plot consists of:

PREMISE
CONFLICT
RISING ACTION
CLIMAX
FALLING ACTION
RESOLUTION

All take more than "2 seconds" to come up with.
All seem "borrowed" in your script.
Time to face cold hard reality and get on with your own work...you might be very good at it.

 sillyrabbit-

AMEN!


I can see how Ian has confused himself with the issue of plot importance in screenwriting.  I remember, when I was a first time screenwriter, being confused as to the most important aspect of a story.  I too thought it was character and dialogue,  and only gave cursory though to the plot.  Years later I now understand that the plot is the engine, the most important part of a script, once I have a good one I can weave any character into it.  Borrowing any portion of a plot from someone else compromises the entire work.  Yes Ian you have shown talent in screenwriting, now lets see some original ideas.

This is a first time work, it was put on simply scripts so that Ian could get some feedback.  

All he said at the beginning was "let me know what you think." It seems people are getting hung up on the fact that the plot isn't entirely his own rather than commenting on his style and form.  It's obvious that in a case like this it would be compleatly stupid to congratulate him on a carefully crafted plot with interesting and unexpected twists.  But would it be impossible to comment on the other attributes of his work?

I am a very average film-goer, when I go to see a horror of the slasher type I'm not looking for plot.  I'm looking to go and be captured by the characters; to listen to the dialogue and believe in those characters; to be kept on the edge of my seat by the action sequences and to feel for them when their number [as so often is the case] is reduced to the one survivor.  Isn't that a large part of the craft of writing slasher movies?  As a first effort from Ian I felt that it acheived all of this. Plot may be your engine, a script is nothing without it, but the actions sequences and characters are the fuel that make it run.

Quoted from smackmyho, posted May 27th, 2004, 9:36am at here I am reading your script and you obviously DO have some skill, it is just wasted on this pointless rehash. I don't see much point in work shopping the whole script considering how I feel about the banality of it all, but if you would like me to help out on a purely clinical level I think I could be of help.

Is this what you mean?

There is no hard cold reality to face. I know what I've done, and never said it was all my own work. I'm only defending it because the majority of what fills in the structure is mine. You're basically telling me to write this off as a flat out copy and I'm not going to do that because I know that it isn't. And for this to be fair, don't you need to go round every other script on here that is a remake or adaptation and give them the same lecture? A very small number of us on here are being singled out. Also, look for the scripts where people have ripped something else off and passed it of as their own creation with a straight face. That's much, MUCH worse.

I've been told about three times that I need to do something of my own. Well that was the whole point of writing this. Now I feel that I CAN, I WILL. But like I said I only gained the confidence from doing this one. Stop telling me to do things that I said I'm going to do! My originals will come, but they wouldn't be coming if it wasn't for this, so I don't see how I can win. If I CONTINUED to do adaptations, then yeah, it would be like "get your own ideas already!". But it was just a practice! I don't mean to insult anyone by putting it on here, but there was no other way of me finding out if I was any good.

Anyway, I can't say anymore, because I've said everything I can now and regurgitation gives me a headache. I hope that you've said all you needed to say as well. You don't like what I did and that's fair enough. Lets just leave it at that?